Despite his call for a “religious revolution” in Islam, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s gestures fit into a pattern of instrumentalizing religion for political purposes. Religious freedom under Sisi’s presidency may not be worse than it was under Mubarak or Morsi, but it is certainly no better.

The recent end to sectarian violence in Tripoli, Lebanon presents a historic opportunity for Lebanese Alawites to search for new leaders who embrace a more independent approach toward Damascus and a more conciliatory posture toward Tripoli’s Sunni majority.

While the establishment of people's courts and peace councils in the Kurdish region of Syria are positive, the boundaries between party, civil society, and state structures have becomed blurred and could be problematic.

The regime's removal of a military intelligence chief of the southern Syrian city of Sweida after protests led by Druze religious sheikhs indicates that the position of the regime in the city is not as strong as it once was.

The simmering intra-Sunni tensions in Tripoli, Lebanon in relation to the conflict in Syria belies the standard sectarian divide of Sunni versus Shia, in a sign of how multifaceted and fragmented the Sunni Islamic spectrum really is.

The northern Lebanese port city of Tripoli is home to several Sunni Islamist groups that support the Assad regime and Syrian patronage has given them access to funds, weapons, and political connections.

While the Christian Wusta neighborhood in Qamishli previously had one militia with ambivalent political loyalties, it now has two separate militias with clear and opposing loyalties: Sutoro and Sootoro.